Monday, June 5, 2000

Deepwater
Spar contract
Spars International Inc, a 50:50 joint venture of Aker Maritime
Inc and J Ray McDermott, has been awarded a spar floating production
platform for the Nansen field operated by Kerr-McGee Oil &
Gas Corporation in the Gulf of Mexico.

Aker Maritime will be responsible for engineering,
procurement, fabrication and delivery of the complete hull and
moorings, and in conjunction with J Ray McDermott will deliver
the risers.

Nansen is the fourth deepwater field to
be developed using spar technology. The three spar platforms
already installed in the Gulf of Mexico are so called caisson
spars, with a cylindrical hull from top to keel. The Nansen platform
will be the first truss spar which incorporates a tubular truss
system replacing the lower part of the cylindrical hull. The
hull for Nansen will be 165.5 meters (543 ft) tall, with a diameter
of 27.4 meters (90 ft) and a displacement of 30 000 metric tons.

The Nansen field is located in the Gulf
of Mexico's East Breaks Blocks 601, 602 and 646 approximately
200 km (130 miles) south of Galveston, Texas, in water depth
of approximately 1,130 meters (3,700 feet). Delivery of the spar
is scheduled for fourth quarter 2001.

Production is planned to peak at 40.000
barrels of oil per day and 200 million cubic feet of gas, coming
from up to eight wells connected to the dry wellheads on the
platform.

Recognized for its deepwater technology
and ability to deliver creative field development solutions,
Aker Maritime is one of the world's largest suppliers of offshore
technology, engineering, fabrication, and installation services
to the oil and gas industry.

Wärtsilä NSD powers Greek ferry revolution
This being Posidonia time, diesel designer Wärtsilä
NSD is pointing out that in the past two years it has sold medium-speed
diesel engines to the value of more than 220 million Euro (around
$200 million) for ferries, Ro-Ro vessels, cruise
ships and other vessels contracted by Greek owners.
These involve a total of 103 main diesel engines having an aggregate
power of 1.13 million kW.

Most of these newbuildings are ferries
for upgrading domestic services to the Greek islands and for
providing greater capacities on the Adriatic services.

The latest order is for the engines to
be installed in a pair of 30,000 grt ferries contracted by Attica
Enterprises at Germany's Flender Werft. Due for delivery early
in 2002, these ferries will each be powered by four Wärtsilä
12V46C engines of 48,000 kW output for a service speed of 28.5
knots.

This contract continues a relationship
between Wärtsilä NSD and Attica Enterprises which began
with Attica's first Superfast ferries that entered service in
1995 on the Patras-Ancona route between Greece and Italy. The
two ferries contracted at Flender Werft will be the eleventh
and twelfth Superfast ferries to be powered by engines
from Wärtsilä NSD.